We Can Stop (Any Time We Want)
by Sarah Rose Serena
Summary: Teenaged street kid turned card counting MIT prodigy Felicity runs into bad boy billionaire Oliver Queen in an underground gambling house while he's making money he doesn't need off an illegal fight ring. But that is only the beginning. And it's all Selina's fault. Because Felicity really isn't a sneaky thief. She's just a good friend. A really good friend.
1. a rather unusual incident

.

**We Can Stop**

**(Any Time We Want)**

[an **Arrow** story by _Sarah Rose Serena_]

* * *

Selina Kyle is a bad influence. But in a good way. In a better way than the bad influences she grew up with as a street kid in Vegas with a deadbeat mom and a dad that sends postcards from prison pretending to be Peru. She doesn't blame him. She wouldn't know the truth if she hadn't hacked her way to it through the FBI's cyber crimes database after a curious late night perusal and a suspicious lack of cell phone, bank account, any sort of digital footprint for any of Dad's aliases since the nineties. Apparently, he made a name for himself, got in deep with Bratva business that led to incarceration. Apparently, he'd rather have his little girl thinking he was off studying exotic pathogenic microorganisms in South America than rotting in a cell somewhere, trading favors for stock market tips and linguistic skills. He's a talented man, her father, or so she's figured from her research over the years, which is where she must get it from. The 160 IQ and intuitive affinity for cybernetics, all things cyber in general really, certainly didn't come from her mother. The cocktail waitress. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Her parents are her parents. This is about Selina. Because if it weren't for Selina Kyle, she wouldn't be in this mess she is in now.

"You really thought you could come into _my_ establishment and swindle _me_?" he asks archly, not sounding as offended as his words imply, but still sounding sufficiently scary.

The meaty hand on her shoulder shoves her back down onto the stool when she tries to jerk upright in startled shock when the two-bit boss across the private blackjack table from her pulls out his particularly large looking silver pistol and sets it down onto the green felt between them with a pointed thump. It's bigger than a handgun has any call being and Selina would make a dry drawling comment about compensating for shortcomings in other departments, but all _she_ can do is swallow. Hard. Because this was a bad idea from the beginning and now she is seeing firsthand just how right she'd been to protest.

"The cute blonde thing only gets you so far, sweetheart."

_Cute_. That's great. Even _gangsters_ hit her with the C word. Nobody calls Selina cute. They call Selina gorgeous. Or knockout. Never cute.

If somebody is going to shoot you, the very least they could do is call you sexy.

"Hey, Marco. What's happening back here?" a vaguely recognizable voice is wondering lightly before this conversation can go any farther. "You're missing the fight, you know."

Suddenly, a swaggering playboy billionaire is cutting into the tension, flashing an empty grin as he sidles up past the brute towering behind her, hand still clamped firmly on her slim shoulder. Horribly blue eyes skate over the scene, pausing when they're level to onceover her where she sits, before he turns his attention to the two-bit and jerks his chin in gesture toward the monitor hung on the wall in the corner, streaming live security feeds from the rest of the club. Beyond an insane rave in the underground nightclub, Marco is also running a pretty successful gambling house out of the back, and a smalltime illegal fight ring on top of that. If she weren't worried about the gun, she'd probably be paying more attention to the screen of male shirtless muscle getting all sweaty, pounding on each other in some barbaric Neanderthal attempt to stave off the boredom of being white collar scions. Except she knows that's not exactly fair. Some of these guys are just like her, trying to make a little cash, maybe pay the bills.

"Get outta here, Queen. I'm trying to conduct business."

"Fine. Don't come bitching to me when your payout hits hard."

It's the guy from earlier. She swivels a little when he ends up standing all but right next to her, seemingly incidentally, one hand held up in placation, another falling to the bumper of the table. Close to her arm. Seeing him here makes her fidget. She thought they'd gotten rid of him and his friend back in the club, what with Selina's ego-bruising dismissal, but here he is, walking in on a situation already too complicated for her liking. Her nerves amp up another notch, her brain fast to sort through the possible complications of his presence, anxiety deepening with the sensation that things are spinning out of control. Maybe she's overreacting. She can't tell, because she isn't used to doing stupid things, and this is decidedly a stupid thing.

When her and Selina bounded up to the bar for a drink, winded from dancing out on the floor under the strobing neon lights and darkness, it was to collapse against the edge, her elbows going down onto the surface, her shoulder brushing this guy's back. Really, _she_ did the bounding while Selina did the slinking and the sultry lazy slouching. With flushed cheeks and a breathless smile, she was waiting for the bartender to grab her a bottled water when the guy she pressed in against turned around to take her in. But actually, he just kinda angled his body to be able to glance over a broad shoulder, his eyes stroking up from lower places to her face, where their gazes caught for a second, making her lips close as she gave him a faint nod of acknowledgement before her focus slid away. It was the friend he'd been facing that turned all the way around, and his attention slid straight to Selina, and of course one look at her was enough to get him rounding the blond man to land on the other side, leaning on the bar beside her with a charming quirk of his thin mouth. They bookended the girls, unintentionally on the blond's part, and the brunet introduced himself to her wicked companion as Tommy Merlyn. _The_ Tommy Merlyn. Normally, Selina would've been all over him, because he is the exact fit of her typical mark, but tonight they had bad intentions of another nature and she rebuffed his interest outright.

Red lips curving prettily, coolly, Selina said, "I don't date college dropouts."

"Who said anything about dating?"

Head tilting to meet his playful stare, she retorted evenly, "I don't _not-date_ trust fund brats."

"Ouch," Tommy reacted, clasping his chest with a wince, laughingly insisting, "That leaves a small pool of selection, doesn't it? You only go for smart broke guys?"

"Exactly," she purred, lips widening. The gleam in hazel eyes warned of risky things and her friend knew what that meant, reminded of the itinerary this evening by that gleam, and it got her turning away from the two, swallowing thickly as the nerves she'd been coaxed into letting go of on the dance floor resettled in her body.

They were still touching. Her and the blond. The _gorgeous_ blond. But he wasn't really paying any attention to the contact, or to her, and she didn't really make a note of him either, except for how pretty he was, because that was just something that couldn't conceivably go unnoticed from this close up. But when Selina wrapped long dangerous fingers around her cocktail glass, slid her bottled water over to her, and spun away from the bar, from the boys, taking her by the wrist with a light press of cool fingertips and leading her away, the hacker did glance backward. Just once. Those blue eyes were drawn her direction, startling the girl.

And now here he is again. She doesn't know how she feels about that. Bothered, surely, a little bit irritated, a lot worried, fretting over this entire situation. Because this situation is _crazy_. She is going to keep saying that, to Selina, to herself, because it warrants repeating. Why she let herself be talked into this is beyond her reasoning. There are some things that just should not be done on account of peer pressure. She's usually so good at resisting it too. And now look what she's gotten mixed up in. This is ridiculous.

"Get lost already, Queen." Marco is losing patience. "We'll settle up later."

The blond says, "I would, but I'm interested now in what you're after from my friend here."

Which gets him an arch look from the boss. "Your what?"

"Oh. Yeah. Me and…"

"Felicity," she supplies, earning the flash of a bright scion smile and a clap on the back before suddenly he's got his arm around her shoulders and is pulling her into his side, forcing Brutus to back off a little. She is still on the stool, but now has a ridiculously built billionaire pressing her in against a set of what feels like _awesomely_ washboard abdominal muscles, spiking her nerves for a new reason altogether, along with her temperature, and confusing her all the more.

But the playboy carries on smoothly, almost without pause at all. "Me and Felicity here, we go way back." Then, with a pointed squeeze to her shoulder, even though his tone stays charmingly irreverently amiable, she is left with the distinct impression of somebody being warned when he adds on, "Farther back than you and I go, Marco. That's for sure."

_Oh_. The confusion clears. He's trying to come to her rescue, she realizes numbly, neck craning to peer up at the horribly handsome face attached to the horribly hot body she is trapped against. He _thinks_ he's coming to her rescue, which might leave her pleasantly surprised, surely flustered by the unexpected gentlemanly gallantry aimed for her, except that he thinks he is rescuing her when things were technically still going according to plan. Okay, yeah, it might be a _stupid_ plan, but that's what she'd agreed to, and that's what she'd been counting on. Oliver Queen trying to help her out of trouble will definitely throw a monkey wrench into that.

"Holes!"

"What?" Marco reacts.

"Felicity," Oliver says through his teeth, playing out the syllables in a way she has never heard, lilting them through his tight _shut up, you're blowing it_ smile.

But he is the one blowing it, and she can't let that happen, so she finds a firmer more certain tone and asserts, "Holes." Then lifts her chin, swallows nervously, and throws herself into the act. Full commitment now. No backing out. It's too late, so she needs to do it right. "You've got some holes in your security system. Some glaring ones. I was just thinking I could always upgrade you." And because the grip on her shoulder is clenched unconsciously, his strength leaving a mark in his shocked distraction, she makes a face and shakes out of his hug. "If you want me to, I mean. Probably, I could cut down your house losses by thirteen percent."

"Get real," Marco scoffs.

"Like that guy right there," she persists, ignoring his outburst. She points a finger to the plant in the gaming room playing baccarat shown on the monitor behind him and the two-bit turns to see what she means. Once he gets a look at the screen, she informs him, "Your system's software is so outdated, it hasn't even picked up the UV card sorter he's got in his pen." The guy wouldn't have half the chips he has accumulated over the night if Selina hadn't made friends then slipped him the cheat, of course, but Felicity doesn't mention that part.

"His pen?"

She blinks from behind her glasses. Tells him slowly, "The one in his pocket?"

Marco rounds on her in narrow-eyed suspicion. Half accuses, "If the scanner didn't pick it up, how did _you_?"

"My phone." They all look blankly at her now, all three sets of eyes staring at the tech girl in unmasked incomprehension. So she holds it up from where she'd palmed it in her lap, and tries to not feel self-conscious under the attention, especially since Oliver freaking Queen is watching her sideways in her little display and it is really starting to effect her performance. She can't tell if his presence helps or hinders the only partially affected innocence of her demeanor, but she'd rather be doing this without him here, not understanding why the hell he came in after her to begin with or why he's sticking around. He's likely why she rushes a little too much when she starts rambling through a prepared sales pitch. "See, I have an app for that. Well, actually, I _wrote_ an app for that. Back when I was fifteen. It's patented. But just for personal use. I don't like being cheated. Neither do you, obviously, and I'll say again how sorry I am for taking too much off your blackjack tables. Normally, I'm more considerate than that. Guess I got carried away. Anyhow, I can help you with that problem. If you want."

Oliver Queen has probably never seen this big of a loser. When she risks a sidelong glance at the pretty playboy, she finds him staring askance. Incredulous really. It's hard to tell what this guy is thinking but his lips are tipped and that makes her all the more self-conscious. The utter silence resounding through the room when she finally clamps her mouth shut doesn't help much either, biting her tongue as she waits, praying this thing goes her way.

"Let's take this into my office," Marco tells her at last, and Felicity huffs out a breath of relief, ignoring the way he nods at Brutus, likely signaling him to go out and retrieve the poor plant and prove her right or wrong. He picks the absurdly large pistol up off the table and tucks it back into his waistband before he rounds to her side and takes her loosely by the upper arm, urging her off the stool and alongside him as he heads for the office down a corridor from the backroom alcove they had her cornered in.

Another thing she ignores? The feel of Oliver Queen's blue eyes burning into her back.

That one's harder.

"Take a seat, honey. We'll check out your story," the boss says, shutting the office door behind them as he nudges the small of her back toward a chair in front of the desk. She sits down heavily and fidgets with her legs for a second, crossing one knee over the other before uncrossing again, not quite sure how to get comfortable or look confident when she's feeling this much like a basket case ready to burst. "If you're for real, you and me could be good friends."

By the way, she likes _honey_ even less than _sweetheart_.

"So you're some kinda IT guru?"

"MIT prodigy," she answers absently, shifting again in her chair, delicate fingers clamping onto the armrest in a subtle death grip. "Not to sound conceited."

Distraction. That's what this is. She made her counting obvious to get caught and dragged into the back of Cyrene, a hub of underground hedonism, smalltime mafia ties. She only has to set it up. Selina will take the actual risk. But that doesn't make her feel any safer sitting here trying to remember how she is supposed to get him to do what she needs him to. It seemed simple enough talking it all over at Selina's place, but now that she is here, and with the Oliver Queen detour and all that fluster, her mind has gone blank. Unusual, but not unprecedented, because she doesn't do well under pressure. Unless she's hacking against the clock, in which case she thrives, but this _so_ not owning lessers from behind her computer screen, where she is all but God.

This real life thing is always so nerve-wracking.

Felicity is 19 and a junior at MIT on summer break in Starling City. This is one of five cities her best friend takes up residence in, her scammer lifestyle requiring near constant rotation locations, and she promised her exciting experiences to come out and stay with her until school was back in. But the tech girl should've known better. Selina's exciting is Felicity's big trouble.

"So, what is it you think you're gonna do for me?"

"Here, look. This is the software I was talking about," she tells him, leaning forward in her seat with the phone turned toward him, her thumb sliding back and forth over its touchscreen to pull up the program and demonstrate its mechanics for the mafioso. He unfastens his suit jacket and perches on the edge of his desk, crosses his ankles where he leans, bending over her gesture a bit. "It's a high-capacity troubleshooter, a frequency scanner calibrated to register the signals given off by any card reader with remote application parameters. It'll tell you when someone's using an app or a sorter like the baccarat guy within a hundred square foot radius." Another fingertip swish has the video focus onscreen. "And this filter here? This baby reads phosphorous chemicals. I could write it into your security system and have it working seamlessly with your facial recognition and cross-reference search analysis in a matter of days. The camera feeds will give off alerts whenever someone tries marking the cards." Pulling the phone back into her lap, she pushes deeper against her chair and says, "That is just a small part of what I can do for you, Mr. Marco."

"Just Marco."

"Oh. Okay. Sorry."

"Tell you what," he starts, taking in a debating breath, and then plucks the smartphone out of her grasp before she can object, "I'll hold onto this, see what good it can be put to, and we'll give you a trial basis to prove your worth. If it turns out you really are worth my while, I'll forgive your debt with the house."

He is already up and rounding the desk toward the far wall, where he jerks off the hung mirror and keys in a code to the entry lock on his safe, setting her phone securely inside where she won't be able to get it back. Where no one else will be able to get their hands on the goldmine he knows he just happenstance struck. Probably thinking it's his lucky day behind that unimpressed façade, that intimidating gangster veneer, but Felicity's fingers are the quickest in town, and she already has her secondary smartphone out and on and discreetly aimed from against her hip as soon as he turns his back. So the video camera captures his play over the keypad. Exactly like they talked of it back at Selina's warehouse loft. She is so stunned things are actually going okay, she almost gives away her giddy pleasure. But her nerves are still strung taut, so she works fast with the second cell before he locks the safe back up and spins around again, tapping at the remote access trigger she buried behind their system's firewalls earlier in the evening in preparation for this very moment, setting off the building fire alarms.

Marco cranes his head in surprise, in suspicion, narrowed eyes going to her, for which all she can give is a sheepish shrug and a few befuddled blinks of her eyelashes. She has the phone held under her leg out of sight.

"Sir, we gotta move," Brutus Two rumbles from behind her when the door bursts open and a new bulky brute of a security man appears in the opening.

The two-bit strides hurriedly past the desk and snatches her up by the arm, hauling her along as they hustle out of the office and down the corridor. A wisp of dark brown hair and tight leather brushes against her as Felicity gets dragged, long cool fingers slipping the phone from her grasp without a hitch in pace when Selina glides by them from a cross-section hall, disappearing inside the open office door in their wake, nobody but Felicity aware of what happened.

"Uh, wait. You know, I can also upgrade your facial recognition with a filter that picks out infrared contact lenses and maybe—"

"You did something." Whirling on her, Marco glowers fiercely as he takes the girl between his rough paws, bruising into her shoulders when he uses the grip to shove her back into the cement of the wall. "You had a hand in this, didn't you, blondie?"

Felicity cringes. "What? Me? No! I mean, why would I—"

"Get your hands off her," a familiar gravelly voice cuts in sharply, protectively, and suddenly Oliver Queen is here again, finding the roadblock of Brutus Two between them when he goes to intervene on the girl's behalf.

"Mind your own business, rich kid." Turning back on her, he demands, "What's your game?" Except he doesn't get to finish, because Felicity reacts on brash impulse, using his brief distraction to get herself out of his grasp by slamming the heel of one palm into his collarbone on the left and her straightened fingers into his gut on the right before twisting around as force of momentum makes him stumble backward, gaining space from the wall, catching his underarm at her arched back when she wrenches his wrist in both hands through her spin, hips thrusting back into his to send him flipping over her head. He lands on the concrete floor flat on his back _hard_, even as her hands fly up to her mouth with a gasp, her feet rushing her backward away from it.

"Omigod! I'm so sorry."

Oliver uses the surprise of that second to blitz Brutus Two with a sucker punch that knocks him out of the way. Because he obviously isn't as dumb as the tabloids make him out to be, he just surges by, snatching her by the wrist and yanking her with him into a run, knowing full well there is no way he'd be able to take the mountain bouncer fairly. And because she is slightly crazy now, obviously, or else she'd never have let Selina talk her into all this, Felicity finds herself laughing breathlessly as she races after him, his fingers warm and strong locked around her slender wrist, cutting corners side by side in the corridors at whiplash speed amidst the melee of the building clearing in panic.

_I can't believe I actually took a guy down_, her brain is exclaiming. _Just like we practiced!_

She's feeling it too, panic and anxiety and confusion as the alarms blare overhead, as drugged drunk adrenaline junkies scream and yell on their way out of the overcrowded hub, as the techno music still thrums through concrete walls, echoing off. Fear she is used to, and the nerves spiking through her like always, but the rush is unexpected, and really sorta exhilarating. But none of this was part of the plan. She was just supposed to get Marco out of the office, just provide distraction while Selina snuck past and got what she needed out of the safe once Felicity got the code for her. Things are messy and chaotic and she hadn't been braced for that. She thought she'd slip away in the confusion while Marco was preoccupied evacuating his joint. The security wasn't supposed to be chasing _her_ down. And she's also having trouble absorbing the fact that a stranger, an awfully gorgeous 25-year-old disgustingly rich reprobate playboy just went out of his way to save her from a situation of her own making. It's kind of surreal. And hot. And insane.

Why she does these kinds of favors for her crazy friend, she'll never figure out.

Oh. Wait. That's right. Because the crazy friend is her _only_ friend.

All in all, still a better influence than her ilk on the Strip. And she never fit in well with them, being who she is and all, a bit too smart for her own good and bored as hell. Selina at least makes her feel wanted. Makes her feel like she is strong and fearless. It's good to have a friend like that. Even if that friend happens to be an incorrigible cat burglar with mad skills and a penchant for stealing so many pretty things. _Priceless_ things.

Hectic. That's the word for her life as Selina Kyle's sidekick.

They crash into the double doors leading out to the club to be met by Brutus One in the way, blocking their path, which has the girl yanking back on his clasp, her body colliding with Oliver's, stumbling him back into the white corridor instead of the disorienting darkness of the outer club. With a yelp, pushing against the playboy's chest, she yells, "_Selina_!"

And a blur of dark hair and tight leather comes out of nowhere. Like always. She doesn't know when the grifter caught up to them, but as soon as they're back through the bashed doors, she has slid past and leapt at the obstacle slowing them down. Her legs go around his shoulders, one calf hooking on the back of his head, a thigh fixed to his throat as she flings her body backward from the jump and swivels like a spinning top almost, all fluid moves and talented limbs, flipping him down to the ground with her at their feet. Knocking his head into the cement. Half a second is all it takes. A blur of motion, of disturbed air blowing over them, and it is done.

Without waiting to see if he'll get back up again, Selina untangles her legs and is popping up onto her feet sleekly as ever, reaching out and snatching onto Felicity's unadorned wrist to pull her with her when she pitches hurriedly into the club, jerking the girl quick out of Oliver's grasp. Paying him no mind at all really. But the blonde looks back, sending him a harried half apologetic expression of thanks, hustling along behind her friend, pressing close to avoid being split apart by the frenzy of people elbowing and scattering every which way.

They get through the sunken level of the nightclub and up the iron stairs past the gaming hub and the fight ring and then up another set of stairs with the flooding horde of fleeing traffic before she crashes bodily into someone rough enough to rip her from Selina's strong grip, his own hands catching her as they both go down, knocked to their knees by the pressure of people. She gasps as her glasses go skittering. It's a tragic gasp, because they're probably trampled, but she is grabbing out frantically for them as they go, her fingertips brushing the frames before they get pushed off. Blind as she is, her eyes jump up and fix on his face from under her lashes, right next to hers there in the chaos, and she can see enough to know who it is again.

"Sorry, so sorry," she thinks she hears him saying below the din, but isn't quite sure, and there isn't time to wonder. "I didn't mean to tackle you. I was just trying to—"

"_Felicity_!" her friend bites out from behind her, over her, and she meets those blue eyes once more that make her blush, for some inexplicable reason, before she offers a soft smile, being lifted and practically carried away by the wave of exodus.

Oliver stands still in the sea of panicked motion, watching her fade, clutching a cracked pair of rectangle spectacles in his hands. Wondering what the hell that was.

And how he can ever maybe get it again.

* * *

_AN: Alright. So this sucks. Whatever._


	2. for a case of crush at first sight

.

* * *

He comes back every night to Cyrene for two weeks, looking for card shark Cyber Cinderella, pretending that isn't what he's doing as Tommy harasses him about it. About his sudden _fixation_. It's bizarre, but he can't stop thinking about the little blonde geek that caused such a ruckus with her little pink smartphone. So after that first night, he comes back. Again and again. Looks for her in the crowd. It took a sizable donation and a little harassment to make amends with Marco's boss enough to not get jumped, very convincing about the fact that he was fooled by a pretty face and had absolutely no idea who they were or what was going on, so he can't imagine her having better luck returning to the scene of the crime, however more apt at blending in a pretty young thing in the crowd could be than him and his famous face. She'd still be an idiot to come back here after what happened, because these mob guys are fickle in their sense of humor, but he keeps searching for her face in the havoc anyway, unaware half the time that he's even doing it.

Tommy was there that night, maybe not for the main event, but for enough of it. He heard all about how Oliver all but got his ass handed to him by a little girl in a short skirt and a long jacket, so his wingman knows what he's pretending not to do, and he goads him about it the entire time. But he'll take the shit. He really wants to see her again.

If only to figure out what the hell actually had been going on.

When he finally finds her, it's despite the dark wig and lack of glasses. He'd been eyeing for the flash of yellow under the ultraviolet lighting of the club, and her face looks almost completely different without the frames, almost like a new person, so he isn't sure what makes him spot her in the mess of dancing ravers, her head thrown back and the synthetic sheets of chestnut tresses turned black in the neon strobes. Her skin is luminescent pale in the blue, exposed by the slip of a crimson halter, her legs long in loose slacks. She has her eyes closed, bouncing with the rest of the crush of bodies on the sunken dance floor below him, all the tense nervous energy he saw before gone from her now, forgotten on the wave of cutting free of her troubles, her petite body shaking and popping to the electric rhythm of a ZZ Ward remix.

There is a subconscious confidence about her like this that changes his Cinderella completely, and Oliver finds himself instantly mesmerized, an amused smile pulling at his lips as he sets down his drink and leaves the bar behind, gravitating powerlessly through the sea of revelers toward her where she loses herself. In the dark like this, in the disorienting light show and deafening din with so many distractions all around, he isn't even sure it's really her until he gets up close, isn't sure if he's just making things up in his head. But he comes up behind her, studying her face in motion, open and wholly unguarded and unusually beautiful in its simplicity, and he knows he hasn't just made up a damn thing.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, this girl doesn't seem like much of a risk taker. He'd bet it only comes out of her on behalf of somebody else. So if she is back again, it must be for the friend. The troublemaker in taut leather.

Right about the time things wind down to semi sedated with Jaymes Young, Oliver advances on the mystery girl, stirred to close the distance, to touch her waist from behind, bringing himself gently flush against her back. Her eyes snap open, chin dropping in surprise, and he feels the shift in her awareness ripple into him, a fleeting glimpse of uninhibited looseness tightening into wary uncertainty. He doesn't know if she knows it is him, if she senses it or can see, but she doesn't pull away from him, and she doesn't turn around.

_The brightness of the sun_…

After a minute of hesitation, of almost awkwardness, waiting for her to react, she apparently decides she isn't ready to let go of the freedom just yet. Cool hands lift to land lightly on his own, delicate fingers slipping between his own, guiding him lower until his grasp settles near her hips. She tips her head to one side, dark hair spilling that way, and begins to move slowly against him, syrupy and smooth, an intoxicating subtlety to her now. A strange contradictory mix of tentative shyness and careless commitment to confidence. They dance in the dark with the bass vibrating through them and the neon lights strobing wildly, his hands lingering on her hips and his mouth whispering across the curve of her exposed shoulder, an island amidst the frenetic push and pull of the rave world around them there.

_I long to hear your voice_…

Her touch drifts away, arms snaking eventually into the air, silkily lingering above her head as her hips shimmy to the cosmic melody. He splays fingers on her skin as her head drops forward, hair curtaining her off from their surroundings, exposing the nape of her neck to him as he bends over her, brushing lips over the sensitive area, making her shiver. Which makes him grin into it, which has a small disgruntled sound escaping her throat, which only makes his cocky grin widen. Warm hand grazing around the shape of a diminutive torso to flatten one wide palm against her lower stomach, slipped under the fabric of her halter, he urges her firmer into him, holding fast when she gives a halfhearted tug forward, until a sigh slips past her lips and she melts backward into it, into him, her arms falling to drape over his shoulders, around his neck, her head dropping back onto his chest. The slight scruff of a five o'clock shadow scrapes her cheek when he leans in, bending his head into hers, and the faint scratch of caress makes her shiver again. He watches her swallow in the aftermath, throat working nervously, catching her bottom lip between white teeth as she seems to lose her grasp on the freeing quality of the club's otherworld atmosphere. Put into her senses once more.

Tensely now, she tries to straighten away from him, tries to separate herself, but Oliver won't let her go. He keeps her bracketed within his hands, a strong grip that straddles the line of subtle suggestion and outright controlling. She doesn't struggle, but she doesn't relax either, so he starts easing himself through her orbit, an unhurried revolving movement that brings them face to face. He stands nearly a head taller, a sober intensity to him as he stares, but she doesn't duck away at the attention, the unsettling focus, just keeps her chin upturned, her eyes staying level, a softness about her that has steel and quiet and intrigues him. She can't seem to figure out what he's after, is obviously not comfortable with his interest, and yet she won't back down.

Voice rasping low, slight ironic smile curving his mouth, he says, "Felicity, The Shark."

The girl blinks. Cants her head in mild surprise. "You remember my name."

Chuckling inside, he replies, "You're memorable."

"Not usually."

They're standing close, speaking softly below the noise, unmoving in the middle of the throng. He keeps waiting for her to pull out a phone, start a revolution, half expecting to be swarmed by angry mobsters. Whatever her task here tonight, she's taken the time to spare him her undivided attention so far, and he isn't all that disappointed by the lack of action. Mostly he is surprised she hasn't run away yet. He fingers a satiny lock of dark hair, curls it around his finger, grinning at the girl as he does, his gaze never wavering from her own. He remembers her eyes were blue last time, a pale grayish hue, brilliantly clear, and he doesn't know why he remembers that fact, since it isn't like him at all, but he distinctly does, so the green in her irises tonight is probably contact lenses. And with all this common sense apparent, he can't help but question, "Is it really?"

"What?"

"Your name. Felicity."

"Yes," she says softly, seriously, after a second of hesitation.

The proverbial glass slipper has been burning a hole in his jacket pocket for weeks, yet it takes him this long to think of it, reminded only when her fingers come up to her face, hanging oddly a beat in a reflexive gesture at straightening the glasses that are pointedly _not_ perched on her nose. Smiling amusedly, he pulls the repaired set from his inner pocket and slides them gently onto her, each wing hooking to her ears, careful to not bump the bridge but rest it perfectly. Not a very easy thing to do, as it turns out, and he didn't know this before because he hasn't had much experience with the sexy librarian scenario. Shockingly. _Or the cute hacker fantasy_, as he supposes would be more appropriate here.

Riding the entranced high of the moment, the strangely solemn heat of their locked stares, Oliver leans in. Painstakingly slow about it, giving her plenty of time to prepare herself, a bit fixed in a state of daze. About to kiss her. About to _thoroughly_ kiss her, because he is a hedonistic man, an idle rich creature not known for resisting his impulses, nor denying his desires, and he _really_ wants to kiss this girl, and he doesn't want to question the why of it.

His lips maybe centimeters away, she blinks and breathily says, "You know I have contacts in, right? I can't see a thing double layered like this."

He pulls back in surprise, blinking himself with confusion at the not-quite-readable behavior, set off balance by the oddness of Felicity, the subtle unexpectedness, and recollects his wits quick. But she slips away before he can regain his footing.

_In the moondust_…

On the deserted city street outside the club, he catches up to her after she bolts. Hours later, after waiting on the smoking stoop in the side alley of the building to spot her crossing by when she comes out, obviously after taking care of whatever mischievous mission brought her back to begin with. There are no fire alarms tonight, no mass raining pandemonium, which is somewhat of a letdown, but it all leaves him ever more curious. So when he does sight her at last, he finds himself rushing after her, practically at a run, not at all the cool swagger he'd planned on, that he is used to using. Nothing about tonight, about the first night, about her and him to do with her is normal for him. The typical indifference he's grown familiar with feeling for the world, for his life, is all but forgotten with Cyber Cinderella in his head. And however long or depressingly brief that diversion lasts, he intends to milk it.

"You ran off," he tells her unhappily, catching up to the girl at the corner of the brick expanse, snagging her lightly by the elbow.

She seems preoccupied, retorting dismissively, "I was busy."

Not accustomed to his considerable charms failing to sway, Oliver offers a crooked smirk and reels her gently in by the elbow under his fingers, making her step reluctantly into him until their chests nearly brush as he emphasizes endearingly, "I was about to kiss you."

Felicity looks up at him with a clear steady gaze under a sweep of fair lashes, landing the total opposite of the embarrassed indulgence he'd been aiming for, leveling a no-nonsense expression at him instead. "You have a girlfriend, Oliver Queen. And I don't do cheating."

Which is unsurprising now that she has stated it, so he throws back just as fast, just as surely, "You wouldn't be the one cheating."

"I'd be helping you cheat. I don't do that either."

The simplicity of that, of her certainty, of the fact that she has _principles_, and he can't actually remember the last time he met someone with those for real, makes Oliver take a step back and tip his head to one side, studying her afresh.

Finally, he says, "You're quite a girl, Felicity." Uncharacteristically serious about his words. "I've got the feeling I'd be hard-pressed to meet anybody else like you."

Swallowing shortly, she bites her lip and pushes her glasses up her nose, contacts taken out. His gaze draws down to her mouth, to the adorable nervousness of the slip, and he finds himself swallowing too, for a completely different reason. And the special circumstances attempt to resist his urges only gets harder when she says so sincerely, "Thank you for thinking _that_."

After a moment of those words existing in the air between them, electricity almost palpable in the tension of the quiet then, she appears to resolve at something. Dips her chin just barely with a nod of acknowledgement for him as she breathes in and disengages. She starts to brush past him, to walk away, maybe a little sadly, before he loses the fleeting valiant try against his wants and lets his hand catch her arm. Whirling her around as he turns, colliding bodily in a warm heartfelt kiss that he bends his knees and ducks his head to capture, fingertips of his free hand coming up and touching lightly to her face as their lips meet.

It takes her a second, a stretching frozen minute of time, but she pushes past the distraction of shock and magnetic rush from a sudden fierce hunger, and she pulls back with a hand on his chest forcing him off. She sucks in a sharp gasp of air, struggling visibly to right herself, seeming a little dizzy, a little stunned, a little putoff by the unsolicited pleasure. Blinks slightly stupefied up at him with flushed cheeks, dilated eyes, and barely swollen lips.

Feeling heady, feeling victorious, lingering hardly inches from her face, Oliver breathes softly, "Doesn't count against your karma if I steal it."

"It's not karma I'm worried about," slips out before she has time to think.

The man frowns quizzically. His fingers around her arm flex. "Then what is it?"

"Integrity. Honor. Respect." She lists these things lightly, distractedly, but with rich meaning. The impact of which is not lessened as she touches shaky fingers to her parted mouth and steps unsteadily out of his grasp then turns and leaves him there without a single backwards glance. Makes him think…

She leaves him twice without a name. A way to find her. Nothing but Felicity.


	3. and then some illicit ill advisals

.

* * *

As luck would have it, he spots her in a five-star restaurant five weeks later. Sure, he happens to be on a date at the time, but it's casual. He ended things with Laurel prior, which isn't unusual, as rocky as their relationship as always been. Ended it … two days after she left him on the street talking about honor. His strange Felicity. Sweet Felicity. The fixation is still alive, Tommy puts it, but at least he stopped lurking in Cyrene, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, knowing she wouldn't be coming back. The idea of the pretty little hacker has taken on a life of its own in his head and he isn't sure half the time whether he likes it or can't stand it.

What he does know is that thinking of her makes him think of things differently, makes him almost start to see the world differently, definitely see _himself_ differently. And his life doesn't look good through her eyes. His character looks worse. It's such a strange experience, like a subtle tiny seed that's been inadvertently planted, some subliminal suggestion making him think in ways he would really rather not. _Integrity_. _Honor_. _Respect_. _I don't do cheating_. _You remember my name_. _Guess I got carried away_. _Normally I'm more considerate than that_. _You've got some holes in your security system_. He honestly can't understand what has him thinking of this girl so much. Or what makes her any different from the thousand other women he crosses paths with every day. Just something about her. Maybe it is merely the mystery.

And now he sees her dining with an older man across the restaurant, lit in gold and red under soft flattering light, looking younger and purer than she had in the neon dark. Almost untouched. For a split second, he's embarrassed, and surprised with himself, and then he's just plain hungry. He watches her companion drop a hand over her forearm where it rests on the white tablecloth, stroking that soft skin, and the sight tightens something vital inside him. His jaw clenches a little, shifts tensely, eyes skating away from them as he breathes in through his nose.

When she heads for the bar, palming her phone, he slides in beside her between the crowd of patrons waiting for openings. Focused intently as her thumb slides rapidly across the touchscreen, head downcast and golden curls curtaining her cheeks, she doesn't notice him for a full minute. He is tempted to get ego bruised, but decides to blame her ridiculous lack of spatial awareness, not quite able to avoid ending up irked regardless. Never has he met another girl so distractible to his presence. Especially a computer nerd. They're the easiest to wrap around his finger. He just is … _perplexed_ by this one. So he is half annoyed and half amused when his elbow lands on the bar, slouching suavely along her back, and he leans in with a mild smile, speaking close to the column of her graceful throat.

"Hello again, Felicity."

She shivers just a little as he says her name, wrapping that gravelly voice around it like she has never heard anyone do before, a warm wide hand alighting faintly to the small of her spine while the bristle of his jaw catches her hair. He notices the shiver and his smile deepens, her head lifting to attention, frown between her brow smoothing as he pulls her focus from the phone. She has to wet her lips, to swallow once, before finding her voice to greet evenly, "Oliver Queen."

"Making any more gangsters angry?" he asks, his touch falling away when she angles around to face him, leaning back out of her space.

"Not today," is all she says. Then takes her delivered white wine and starts to turn.

His fingers find her elbow and she stills, half spun, his chest brushing her shoulder. He lowers his tone, inducing inadvertent intimacy as he tells her, "I don't have a girlfriend."

Harkening back with a gentle unexpected intensity that brings her eyes up to his, a clear but burning gaze fixing on him under fair lashes, her lips parted just so. And after a telling moment, she counters softly, "Should I take your word for it?"

"I haven't lied to you yet."

"No, you haven't. Yet."

Blue eyes go past her toward the man waiting at her table, his expression unchanged from its previous intention. "That's not your boyfriend." It isn't a question. It's an assertion.

"No, it isn't." Her agreement comes easily, but she doesn't explain.

Without another word, Felicity cuts through the crowd, pulling slowly free of his grasp to slip away and return to her date. Leaving the aimless scion staring after her in muted frustration and what feels like avid fascination.

He's right. It's not her boyfriend. It's a mark. Selina's mark. Felicity is only setting the stage, doing Selina one last favor before she goes back to Boston, and the only reason that her principles allow it is he has been systematically defrauding his lower level employees out of health benefits, embezzling from retirement funds, propping the corporate books with fraudulent profit margins, so she feels justified in helping Selina give him what's coming to him. And if she plans to redirect a chunk of monetary resources from one of his company's offshore accounts to reinflate the losses once her wayward friend gets what she wants out of him … well, it couldn't really hurt her karma, as Mr. Queen might say.

Still, however unoffended her conscience, she can't say she enjoys this. Sitting with Mr. Dean, smiling at him, resisting the urge to yank her hand away when he traces his fingers along her skin is exhausting. Unnerving too. Felicity has always been a horrible liar, and even if Selina taught her how to lose herself in the role, acting in the theatre of it to lessen the biofeedback responses her body always unleashes at the hint of deception, it is far from a good time. So far from making her feel good about herself. On top of that, once again the appearance of Oliver Queen in the scenario has her mind diverting into a hundred places, her focus fraying quickly after she escapes the man. Paranoia has her sensing his eyes on her the whole rest of the night, even though she has no idea where he is or if he hasn't left already, struggling sternly to refocus on Dean.

_Get your hands off her._

Just her luck that a hot guy finally notices her and he is a sleazeball. A sleazeball who doesn't _seem_ like a sleazeball, which is the worst kind. And, _God_, does she need to remember the tabloids. The myriad impressions of notorious Oliver Queen, homegrown incorrigible star of Starling City, known for womanizing ostentatious self-indulgence, for joyriding million-dollar roadsters drunk on hundred-dollar bottles of Jägermeister and crashing into cop cars, for an obnoxious trust fund irresponsibility and a perpetual lack of scruples, never having imagined the term work ethic. He is _not_ someone she wants anything to do with. Which is what makes this pathetic _draw_ she feels for the scion so utterly bothersome.

_I don't have a girlfriend_. Hah. Like that has anything to do with her. Like he quit a tumultuous five-year relationship, however unhealthy it appeared from the outside, because some stranger on the street said she couldn't kiss him if it was cheating. Yeah. Right. _That's not your boyfriend_. So is it just pitiful self-esteem that has his voice echoing in her brain? Torturing her.

_You're memorable. I was about to kiss you. Doesn't count against your karma if I steal it._

The challenge. That must be it. If it was Selina he kept running into, he'd be interested in _her_, but since Felicity is the more accessible from that intrigue hook he witnessed, Felicity is the one. Well, she is not going to be another conquered challenge of charming Oliver Queen.

And she tells herself that again a few minutes later, tells herself that sternly, when she excuses herself again from the table, heading for the rear hallway towards the restroom, and gets cornered by the man in question. He catches her elbow and lightly swings her around to him as he crowds in on her with broad shoulders and a strong chest and a head difference of height that makes her wish she could walk better in higher heels. Kisses her quiet with a deep dip of his knees when she tries to push him off. Which is when she tells herself the whole conquered challenge insight and that she won't be a part of it. Unfortunately, the reminder seems to get swallowed up by the touch of his lips, the sweep of his tongue across the seam of her mouth, which parts in surprise and not conscious decision to open up under him. Definitely not.

"What—" She starts to protest, summoning indignant stiffness, but his mouth only leaves hers for a millisecond, his big hands landing on either hip, fingers curving over the curve there to get a better grip while he walks her backward, pushing through the swinging door, kicking the stopper into its way with a talented nudge of his heel once they're on the other side of it. Between kisses, between breaths, she tries again. "Who do you—"

One hand leaving her hip, he palms the crown of her head, tunneling into loose gold curls as he takes hold of her by the nape, pulling her into him deeper to make words impossible. To make _intelligence_ an unfoundedly difficult thing. He forces her firmly back against a cold marble wall in a determined pursuit that could only be called passionate in its simplest forms. He is bent to keep her trapped, one thigh wedged between her legs, his knee to the wall, his spine arched as he sinks low enough to level them, his hand still on her neck, its thumb stroking absently over her jawline. While she can still think, while she still has the lingering resistance of other desires, other goals in her brain, Felicity presses ineffectually at his chest, his body flush into hers, but even _she_ knows it is halfhearted dissent at best.

"You're stealing things again," she murmurs breathily, her lashes low, once he breaks from her swollen lips, lingering just a centimeter or so from touching.

"Technically, but I don't see you fighting back."

"I'm a good girl," she counters, still a bit dazedly, but pretending otherwise. "I like to give the benefit of the doubt." The fingers that had been straining so mildly to keep him at bay somehow find themselves drifting exploratorily along his collarbone. They catch his necklace, buried under the suit, a small silver chain that leads to a small silver medallion, winding it absently around her knuckles, a light tug putting pressure on the back of his neck. It may be construed—by someone, not her—as a gesture meant to urge him closer. Pull him back down into another distracting kiss. Because the boy can kiss. Boy, can the boy kiss, and he isn't a boy _at all_. She can admit she's never been kissed like she's just been kissed right now.

"I'm sure you are," he says, answering a meaningless comment she forgot all about already with a husky drawl of more meaningless words, palms bracketing the marble on either side of her, his last syllable silenced a fraction too soon as he descends, catching at her lips again, slower now, gentler now, taking his time.

In the powder room. It's a nice room, don't get her wrong, marble and porcelain and gold trim and a whole separate area with two settees and a richly polished oak table with a huge bouquet of utterly hideous flowers. She has her back pinned to the wall that divides the actual powder room from the row of fancy stalls, actual bathroom behind her with the door wedged shut to her side, and with the low lighting and expensive fragrance in the air, it is sort of romantic in a weird way. But this is a restroom. In a restaurant. With her date waiting at the table.

"What is it you want from me exactly?" she challenges, shoving stronger this time, getting him back a step so she can unstick herself from the wall and smooth her dress down straight. Flushed, a little breathless, a lot flustered, _really_ wishing for the first time ever she was one of those girls to get a lot of attention, so she'd know how to be cool, how to deal with this.

Oliver watches her, studying her features, raking his gaze down her length, blue eyes dilated, darkened with heat. His gravelly voice is richer, raspier, dragging down her spine like a tangible touch that makes her quiver when he tells her, "I wanna solve the mystery."

Straightening to alert, she insists, "What mystery? There is no mystery." And tries to push past him to get away before the faint panic fetters out and leaves her dazed again.

"I want to get to know you better," he clarifies, fingers wrapping her wrist when she grabs for the brass handle on the door, his tone patient but persistent. Dedicated with a certain unsettling intensity about him. A zeroed searing focus that makes her knees feel weak and sets her nerves on fire in a way that leaves her vaguely distressed.

_Another kiss and you'll be mine_. She's afraid that could be true. It's taking all her backbone to remember why it isn't a good idea to just go along with whatever this man wants.

Felicity turns her head, meets his burning imploring stare, her bottom lip bitten in her teeth, her heart racing. Pulse jumping under his palm. Swallows hard. "No, you don't. I'm—"

But he cuts in quickly, a frown in his brow and the ghost of a wry smirk at his mouth, "Interesting. And frustrating." He closes in, crossing the gap again, crowding into her space to get her thoughts stuttering to a stop and her lashes heavy. Whispers huskily, "You're in my head now. There's no getting you out."

"Until…"

"Until," he agrees, somewhat self-deprecatingly, somewhat fondly, somewhat enigmatically as he tips his head aside, nearing in on her, moving slowly into her, leaving just enough room to let the closeness drive her crazy from instinctive anticipation. His eyes are halfway shut as his breath tingles across her skin and hers are too, his neck angling at inch by inch differences, toying with his advance, lingering just shy of contact. Seductive as hell and it is so unfair.

Within a heartbeat, every ounce of reluctance keeping her sane evaporates. Propelling herself into him that last infinitesimal bit. She gives in almost instantly, embarrassing and annoying with the swiftness that her strong spine unravels, clutching onto him when he lifts her up against him, hoisting her off her feet with a jolting jerk when she pushes ahead and flings her arms around his neck with sudden verve. One hand behind her thighs, another on her nape, he kisses her harder than ever before, fiercer than ever, a stunning senseless urgency surging up between them once it gets set loose from its banked simmer. His easy strength swinging them sideways and pinning her back against the wall again. Hot and hard and demanding of her with unabashed unhesitant fire. Force. It takes her breath away, this heady dizzy unapologetic intensity she hasn't ever felt before, the source of what he wants from her, of what _she_ wants. This is crazy.

And stupid.

His broader stronger body pinning her up to the marble, Oliver bites her lower lip and sucks, trails damp kisses along her jaw and the sensitive edge of her throat, his hips pistoning into hers, his chest rumbling vibrations into her, making her shudder. He grazes a big hand along her thigh, pushing under the skirt of her dress and into her panties without pause, sliding two fingers inside her as her mouth falls open against his in a hitching gasp. He doesn't wait, doesn't ask, just delves his hand into the wet heat where she needs him most, where desire and craving and electric feel coils tight under the brush of his rough touch. She shudders again, drawn taut and speechless in inexplicable yearning so powerful she can't stand it. Which is a new experience for neat controlled Felicity Smoak. And stupid. Did she say stupid? Because this is _sooo_ stupid. But then those fingers curl just slightly, stretching her just slightly, rasping against velvet fluttering inner walls to make them contract greedily around him, and suddenly she likes stupid. She likes stupid _a lot_. In fact, she begins thinking it isn't that stupid at all. Maybe it is pretty brilliant.

Talk is right. He's a man-whore. An extremely skilled and ridiculously sexy man-whore that she is too weak willed to push away just on principle.

_Hold me up against the wall. Make me beg for more._

Except… Except. Except. Except. She's not that kind of girl.

The spark lit up confuses her, makes her forget that for one second, one minute, one hour or however long it lasts, however far they've gotten and the world's slipped away. These feverish rich stirrings of molten liquid electrifying provocation. There just aren't enough titillating delineative adjectives to explain the interworking biological insanity happening inside her when this man sets his mind on having her any way he wants her. Baser nonsensical instincts unleashed in Felicity to create the illusion of undeniable need, of an instant imperative chemistry, compromising the laws of her au fait logic.

It's not real. It's just lust. _Longing_. It'll end disastrous. _Think about it, Felicity_.

Before things get too far, narrowly not past the point of return, she manages to jerk back out of his hot kiss with a sharp intake of air, shoving him off, dropping down to her feet as he groans, shaking her head, coming to her senses. "_No_. No. Sorry. Not happening."

Oliver falls aside, leant against the vanity bar, her reflection in the mirror over his shoulder disappearing fast, a swish of red and gold, a last glimpse of mussed blonde curls making him sigh.


	4. before an abrupt parting of ways

.

* * *

He finds her a week later, and he still remembers her face, remembers the open innocence of feeling expressing itself across her fine features, every thought flickering across it, every sensation. He remembers it perfectly, remembers how much it captivated him, just the surprise and sincerity and unaffected responses of all her reactions. Which is not usually what happens. Remembering. Or maybe it is. Mystery girl is something he likes solving.

It's a bright sunny summer day and she's looking lovely and rumpled, gold hair spilling down in softly voluminous waves around her, a topknot pulled at each temple to keep it out of her face. She's in a worn grey MIT henley, short sleeves rolled up over her shoulders, exposing sun-kissed skin to more sun, her legs toned and surprising long for her height, accentuated by the short hem of an old pair of cute corduroy shorts. He finds his gaze lingering on the backs of her thighs when he makes his way towards her across the park, admiring the curve of her ass in the hugging shorts and the way they make the whole line of her from behind perfect. She doesn't need heels to do it, wearing white low-top kicks in the green grass, looking like the quintessential pretty picturesque icon of summertime. All she's missing is a glass of mint julep in the sultry heat.

Instead, her hands are full of a red recurve bow. A strange thing.

Archery games. Off to the very edge of the park, down winding miles of running paths and a rambling end of activity courts, aiming for target practice rows installed at the line of the woods bordering its acreage. Training deftly with the bow and a quiver of dulled arrows, a slim brunette standing at her side, one hand touching gently to the small of her back, another to her shoulder, instructing absently over her posture. The sight is subtle, but strangely evocative, and Oliver finds himself drawn once more unto the breach. Or whatever that quote was about.

"What a ridiculous sport," he drawls amusedly, sidling up to her other side, getting near where she has the bow strung back taut beside her chin with a tension weight that puts an imperceptible tremble to her shoulder, near enough to see the faint blush color her cheeks at the husky sound of his voice resounding from the west. She doesn't waver her focus from the arrow and its sightline, her sky blue gaze fixed, but he feels the entirety of attention on her mind and body shift for him, shifting _toward_ him despite the discipline of her willpower curbing it.

"It's not a sport, Mr. Queen." The brunette turns coolly towards him, her hazel eyes skating straight past without pause, somehow addressing and ignoring him at once. His stare catches on the almost caress of graceful fingers as they glide along the blonde's curved elbow and finds it odd and uncomfortably alluring. "It's a weapon."

Felicity breathes out a deep sigh the same second she releases, sending the arrow sailing swift. It embeds dead center on the farthest target.

"Better," her dark-haired friend murmurs in a mildly validating undertone.

Meanwhile, she lowers her arms with an exaggerated wince of soreness and beams out a grin of vibrant victory. "_So_ much better. _Perfect_. Beat _that_. Or don't. Leave me my win."

"You'd think if you wanted her wielding weapons, you'd start with something actually useful," Oliver mentions idly, a mocking lilt of one sandy eyebrow condescending the brunette's coolness. "Like a gun. Or pepper spray."

"There is no art to _pepper spray_," Felicity huffs, swinging around to face him, planting her bow in the grass and resting both hands on it, hooking one ankle around the other. Her indignation is only slightly adorable. "And I don't like guns."

"We compromise," her friend adds, voice low and smooth and empty of emotion or inflection. "And you would be stunned, Mr. Queen, what one may make _useful_ in this world."

"Oliver Queen," the blonde begins, moistening her lips, swallowing nervously at the lull then, at the unsettlingly bland expression on the brunette's beautiful face, "Meet Selina Kyle."

"Miss Kyle," he greets politely, only not politely at all, a negligent nod of his head her direction making those hazel eyes roll as she angles away, one hip jutting and a palm propping on it. He has no interest in that one anyway, more preoccupied by Felicity and her peculiarity, smiling when he catches her biting at her bottom lip as she squints up at him through the blinding yellow daylight, pink and sweet with cherry chapstick. Succulent is a good word, he thinks, looking at her mouth, his indiscretion hidden behind mirrored shades. If his voice is a little huskier, a little rougher than usual when he asks, "Mind if I steal your student away?" Well, nobody points it out.

Kyle looks to Felicity, and Felicity looks to Oliver, questioning etching itself across her face for a strongly indecisive moment before she breathes out her nerves and nods a bit shakily, a creasing of consternation at the idea, even as she hands the bow over to the brunette and turns to the man, waiting for him to take the lead. Nervous fingers pluck at the stretched out hem of her grey tee as she pulls it loose from the back of her shorts and tugs it down. Falling into step beside him when he starts moving away from the archery arena.

"_Omigod! I'm so sorry," she exclaims, cringing and meaning it after she throws Marco over her head and onto his ass with a kickass couple of quicksilver moves that leave Oliver stunned._

Thoughts of the odd little hacker have been plaguing him ever since that night. When he first spotted her in the club, dancing with her friend, his eyes rolled right over the girl without pausing to take her in as anything more than the hundred other hot blondes bouncing up and down under the strobe lights seemed. When she landed beside him at the bar, touching him, catching his gaze then looking away with that tight tiny smile belying how uncomfortable she really was in the joint despite her determined confidence, he lingered for a second, but still didn't think anything of her. It wasn't until he saw her escorted from the betting tables in the back, a half hammered Tommy talking in his ear, that he started paying attention. He thought she was a cute little nerd who got in over her head, looking all innocent and out of her depths, and then she went and shoved off his white knight attempt in favor of brokering deals with gangsters. And when the alarms blasted on, he knew somehow it was her doing. Knew she was in trouble. Found her pinned to a wall in a hall, rambling fast at a pissed Marco, about to get hurt for sure. He would've stepped in, but then she shocked the hell out of him by handling the guy herself, looking as taken aback as he was when he hit the ground and she gasped. It was the curiosity that got him from there. The chase. The girl is like nothing he's seen before, smart and capable and stubborn, shy and confident and unsure and steadfast and brash and anxious, sweet and strong and vulnerable and vixenish in an unconscious and pure and naïve way that gets his blood going. Loyal to her friend, principled against desires, too respectful of a woman she's never even met to get kissed, despite her open unmasked reaction making it obvious she really wanted to be kissed. And in that fancy French cuisine powder room, another contradiction of hers became clear to him. Proper and passionate. Conflicting character traits assure it's impossible he get a clear read on her, making her more than difficult to predict. Even still, he doesn't quite get why he can't seem to shake this peculiar girl, why meeting _her_ has shaken him, but he wants to pursue it.

They walk together along the calm water, a narrow canal cutting into the rolling hills of park, dividing between the thickets of evergreen trees, following the pavement of a secluded footpath, no skaters or joggers out this far.

"I'm leaving tomorrow," she says, in lieu of nothing. Surprising him. "Back to school."

Oliver stops and angles his body towards her, dropping his eyes pointedly down to her shirt, to the block letters and iconic insignia scrawled across her chest. "All the way to Boston."

"Yep," she replies, popping the P on her lips, shoving her fingers into her back pockets with a slow complicated nod of her head, soft golden hair swishing with the faint wave it has to it today. Her glasses are missing in favor of contacts again, uncolored this time, and he likes seeing the hue of her silvery blue eyes without barrier, but also finds himself wistful for the spectacles. He shoves his sunglasses up onto his head, clearing his gaze to meet her stare. And when she licks her lips in nervous restlessness, starts to turn away and start walking again, avoiding the moment's intensity, Oliver reaches out an arm and snags her lightly by the back of her shirt before the girl can escape. "Hey now. No touching. Let me go."

"I've seen your moves," he tells her, leaning in so the stubble on his jaw bristles her hair and his breath blows over her ear. "If you didn't like me touching you, I'd be on the ground by now." And then he slips his other arm around her waist from behind, old cotton of her tee still pinched between his fingers, keeping her from bolting. He snakes a grip around her at the middle and tries to pull her back against him flush with a gentle tug. She lets out a soft _oomph_ sound, still pliable, but doesn't melt into his overture. So he sets his chin on her delicate shoulder and winds the arm tighter around her, bringing her lower half back into his, pressing in against her, subtle but strict. "We never did get to finish our acquaintance."

"Acquaintance?" she echoes skeptically, but her voice is too breathy, too soft, makes him smile with smug pride. Her spine is stiff, arched against the hug. "Is that what you call what you wanted to do to me in a public bathroom?"

"You're right. You're not a public bathroom kind of girl. You deserve better than that. Let me show you what you deserve." His seductive rasping tone lowers further, caressing her senses as he plays fingers teasingly down the curve of one hip, easing up her tee to get to the warm skin below. "It's your last night in Starling. Right?"

"Right," she confirms, blinking dazedly, confusedly, clearing her throat to fight it.

She's stubborn, but he gives it his best. "Then make it count. Spend the night with me."

"I…" Again, she clears her throat. Licks her lips. Shrugs and weasels abruptly out of his grasp, spinning around to step backward, holding up a stern palm to block him access. "I don't think we should do that. It wouldn't be a good idea."

"I think it'd be an excellent idea."

"I think I'm smarter than you."

"Guess I have to concede that one," he admits, ducking his head with it, a small playful smile upturning his lips as he takes a step forward and she takes a step backward. "Are you a virgin?"

"What? No."

"So you wouldn't balk if I said I wanted to feel you come around me. If I said I can tell already we'd be explosive together. You and me, Mystery Felicity, if you give it a chance."

"Oh," she says after a breathless second, her knees wobbling a little and the rest of her going all quivery and precarious, her soft alto voice going throaty with a half panicked laugh and a sigh. "You're bad news."

"Or really good news. For you. I could be. What will it take to convince you?"

"More than you're capable of," she counters, not challenging. Just dismissive. He comes close until his chest hits the barricade of her palm, still outstretched as it is, and Felicity swallows hard. "I'm sorry, but in complete honesty, it's not gonna happen."

"Why not?"

"Because you scare me," she confesses, not even a beat of hesitation before the words slip out. She's not embarrassed, not coquettish or playing hard to get. Just overwhelmed, and doesn't mind admitting it, almost always free and unapologetic with her emotions. It is one of those odd things he is learning and finding himself inexplicably charmed by. Unfortunately, he realizes there is no swaying her from this point when her fingers furl unconsciously in his blue button-down where her hand still rests on his chest, and noticing it makes her look down at those long small fingers, look down and swallow again. Thickly. "I'm not the girl you get to know like that."

"No." Playfulness gone, he soberly and reluctantly agrees, "You're not."

_I'm the girl you don't walk away from._


	5. to finally start afresh with a new guide

.

* * *

**(We Can Stop)**

Seven years later, Oliver Queen comes back from the dead. And then ends up down in the IT department of corporate Queen Consolidated skyscraper, a recommendation from his stepfather leading him to a corner office, looking for a particular sort of assistance.

"Felicity Smoak?"

The pale pink blouse and neat blonde ponytail don't strike him. But when she wheels around in her chair, end of a pen clasped between her teeth, and suddenly stills, drawing back in surprise, he doesn't know which one of them is more stunned. More disjointed. It may not show on his face all that significantly, because nothing really does anymore, not a whole lot getting past the severe sometimes harsh stoicism these days, but his brain halts sharply, and he blinks, and jolting things are rearranging inside him. Grounded by his minimal reaction, the girl shutters from a brief flare of something vehement then eases into casual yet profound calmness quickly. "Oh," is all she says, and that light voice strikes chords in him he thought long deadened. "It's you."

It's springtime outside and the weather is calling. But here she is caged in a cluttered cubicle, attentive and slightly obsessive over her purring processors and whirring modems, hunched over a mess of paperwork spread out around her keyboard, a tablet set aside in the middle of things as she works eight different routes of activity simultaneously, none of which is taking up even a third of the brainpower she is easily capable of.

"I knew a Felicity once."

The girl, woman now really, sits back in her desk chair, studying him intently, and says slowly, "Yes, you did. Once."

Gaze flicking to the plaque on her desk, he mentions, "Guess I finally got that last name."

Again, she just says, "Yes, you did." Then, when all he does is stand and stare, she purses her neon pink painted lips and draws in a breath through her nose. "So…" Tapping the pen awkwardly on her desktop. "Is there something I can help you with?"

He blinks. Comes back to himself. "Right. Yes. I, uh, spilled a latte on my laptop and was just wondering if there might be something you could do to salvage the hard drive." He lifts a mangled husk of computer up from behind his back and sets it onto the corner of her messy desk as he says these words that are already misfiring synapses in her brain before he even gets them all out loud. The sight she glimpses is that _stark_.

Felicity looks down at the poor thing with a blank expression. Looks up at him questioningly. "Latte? Really? Because these look a little like bullet holes."

"My coffee shop is in a bad neighborhood," he tosses back, completely flat, and she can't help but tip her head aside, eyes narrowing incredulously behind the lenses of her rectangular glasses. After a second, his lips twitch, locked stubbled jaw shifting despite that near immaculate control. Those striking blue eyes gain a certain gleam she maybe remembers, but it looks so different now. He seems unwillingly amused, when before he would've been openly entertained, her mockingly indulgent stare pulling a barely there smile from under his restrained veneer.

_Times have changed_, she finds herself thinking drolly. Wistfully.

Sighing heavier than she means to, Felicity breaks the stillness with a light shake of her head, gives up the stalemate after a moment, swiveling back towards her work with a mild promise of, "I'll see what I can do."

Which starts it all. Starts so many things she was never prepared for, and yet has been waiting her whole life to find, even if it knocks into her with surprise. Knocks her over. Knocks on a door she doesn't have with the changed familiar face of a man she once knew, what was supposed to be a dead man, and now she can never go back.

Not that she would choose to go back.

* * *

A few weeks later, Oliver and Felicity collapse hard into bed, fell side by side on their backs, naked and panting and sweaty and boneless in afterglow. Don't ask them how they end up here. It's anyone's guess. She didn't mean for it to happen, and he _definitely_ didn't mean for it either, but sometimes chemicals just spark. And there is nothing you can do to smother the combustion once they trigger. Once they collide.

Looking over at him, a cascade of soft laughter escapes her, rich and genuine and lightening the mood from its earlier intensity, its fervency, before she declares, "Wow."

"Yeah."

"That was…" Turning on her side, brow furrowing curiously, she props her head on her palm, elbow digging into the pillow. "Why did we wait so long to do that?" But then he turns his head, gives her a flat look, and she remembers. "Oh. Right." She laughs again, a soft burst of it shaking her shoulders, clamping a hand over her mouth a split second later, blue eyes wide. "Crap. Sorry. That's not funny. I don't know why I laughed."

"I don't know why you do any of the things you do," he says, voice huskier than usual from all the ruction, facing the ceiling. Thoughtfully, "I remember I liked that about you."

He's a completely different person. And yet not really. It's just that the changes are so severe, so stark, that it tricks you into thinking he's someone entirely new. She's relieved. The young man she knew once briefly may have been a selfish party boy, but there were a lot of things she really _really_ liked about him, and she's glad to see the echo of some of those things having survived his time taken out of life.

Palm dropped to the pillows, she pushes upright, casts her eyes down on him, lingering over his ripped body in absent absorption, tracing a fingertip faintly across the mangled patchwork of his torso, strewn with ugly scars. As she grazes what is obviously a bullet wound, she tips her head and questions, "What happened here?"

He hesitates, crystalline eyes fixed up on her face as she leans over him, a tousled lock of gold hair caught between his fingers, watching her intensely, shuttered but not totally walled off yet. "Latte," he says after a minute, his tone giving nothing away. "In a bad neighborhood."

Felicity's gaze cuts back to his face and her pink lips curve, another light laugh whispering breathily out of her as she cringes at him, flipping her tangled tresses over one shoulder. "God. You're so good at that."

"What?"

"The straight face," she tells him bluntly, a familiar quirk of one eyebrow as she lowers herself half on top of him making him smile, her forearm across his sternum, her chin on her wrist as she focuses on him in easy contemplation. Easy acceptance.

Oliver's rough fingertips feather up her bare back in a ghost of a caress, earning a rich shiver, her lashes falling and her lips ticking up. She surprises him. Everything about her. He remembers the feeling of it all those years ago, in a different life, remembers how drawn to her he had been. And here he is, the ghost of his former self, and she is still just as surprising and just as alluring in that soft strange way of hers, but the pull feels different now too. It's more important. _Profound_. Like a port in the storm. A lighthouse beacon or an untouchable tether with endless possibility. And _that_ startles him.

He swings upright then, catching her laughing lips in a searing kiss, and takes her by the shoulder, by the hip, flipping her over him to roll the woman onto her back beneath his body for round two. He wants to see how much better it can get. She laughs into his mouth and then he sinks inside her and suddenly she isn't laughing anymore.

It's not funny. It's something else.

* * *

_finis_


End file.
